I don't have kids, and never plan on having them, but I think I've noticed a few articles in the news of late that indicates just what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts considers appropriate and not appropriate for treating children.

1) A parent insisting on knowing when his kindergartener child is being taught about homosexuality: bad.

2) Teaching second-graders the facts about AIDS, including discussions of vaginal secretions and semen: good.

3) Handcuffing rambunctious 7-year-olds who assault teachers and police officers, including ripping a chain off one teacher's neck and punching an officer in the groin: best of a bunch of bad alternatives.

4) A day-care placing overly rowdy children in a padded room until they stop acting violent, instead of other, more direct methods: bad.

5) Spanking a 12-year-old three times with a belt over his clothes for repeatedly forgetting to bring his homework home: bad.

According to current sex education theory, the way to prevent teenagers from getting pregnant is to expose 2nd graders to graphic details about anal sex. This is considered enlightened.

Also, if parents don't do their job disciplining their kids, responsibility defaults to the schools, which are hamstrung by regulations and litigation threats. So it really shouldn't be any surprise that disciplinary problems then become issues for local law enforcement agencies to resolve.

Parenting, here is one angle.angel, ( how ever you spell it) My "adopted" blond haired wonder often knows how to embarrase me, In reference to the spanking ( which I am personally not about to do to her for personal choice reasons, ) after a stern lecture ( believe me I inherited my fathers "LOOK" and as such I can do it myself quite well on her when needed, she then proceded to lay over my lap and say "Spank me Master"

One more responsibility all parents must have is to BE AWARE JUST WHAT THE HELL YOUR KIDS WATCH ON TVParenting, here is one angle.angel, ( how ever you spell it) My "adopted" blond haired wonder often knows how to embarrase me, In reference to the spanking ( which I am personally not about to do to her for personal choice reasons, ) after a stern lecture ( believe me I inherited my fathers "LOOK" and as such I can do it myself quite well on her when needed, she then proceded to lay over my lap and say "Spank me Master"

One more responsibility all parents must have is to BE AWARE JUST WHAT THE HELL YOUR KIDS WATCH ON TV

Let me tell you something...this is the most absurb thing. Big brother has to business telling me how to raise my children and neither does the school system. PERIOD. I am not an advocate of the spanking method of discipline but I have used it over the years. I can count the number of times used on both my girls and at 25 and almost 20 they are no more worse for the wear but they damned sure learned a lesson from it and never repeated it.
I don't like the school dictating touchy feely ways of dealing with life. I don't like shock factors for small children and I am repulsed by such things as graphic details about sex and HIV as a consequence to a 7 yr old. These are certainly not things that the public school system should be teaching. Whatever happened to making children articulate and intelligent? Give me a break here.
I liken all of this to the issue that I had with my oldest over global ethics in her freshman class in high school where they were trying to teach them tolerance and acceptance of all things regardless of religion etc etc. I was told that it was necessary because so many children didn't have the ability to understand people in the world today. (what??? where the hell were the parents prior to them becoming freshman in high school for crying out loud?)) I say CRAP. It's not their place to push any agenda on any child whether I agree with it or not as a parent. Just for the record, I am a parent who believes that preparing my children for life was my priority and I took that very seriously. Both of my girls are successful and extremely prepared for what comes their way. They are both intelligent and articlulate and it certainly wasn't because I took a back seat and let the public schools system do their job. It is because I saw to it that they were.
The day my youngest left the public school system was the day I should have thrown a huge party.
I taught my children tolerance. I taught my children the difference between right and wrong. I taught my childrent to stick up for the underdog. I taught my children ethics....On and on and on. They still come to me from time to time for guidance though not much and for that I feel that my job was a success. I am proud to say that I am an effective parent. Oh..and I did it as a single parent for a number of years until I remarried and had someone who shared the same ideals as me that as willing to reinforce the lessons being taught.
(wow! that was a real rant wasn't it)

OK, I read the article on the 7 year old getting handcuffed and I am still active in debating the merits of handcuffing the deviant 5 year old child on this site. In the article there is no mention of the boy's race, so I will state this here before any wacky liberal can cry racism:

What happened to that kid was absolutely the correct thing to do. It sounds like he was totally out of control, destructive, and a danger to himself and others around him. He may be special needs, but if the parents don't notify the school and/or set-up a plan to deal with it before something like this happens then there in no one to blame but the parents.

Now the father is thinking of suing, well naturally, just like the idiot mother in Florida. Personal responsibility has ceased to exist for many in this country, it's always someone else's fault and that person naturally has to pay up. Ridiculous.

Please give the schools a break. They sure aren't perfect…but neither is anybody reading this (an assumption of course).
Parenting is not job with only one position…left or right.
Even inside established families parents disagree as to how to discipline or teach their kids.
Why would we expect our schools to do any better?
If you don't like your schools, get involved to change them.
If you don't want to change them go to a private school or homeschool. In this, we still have a choice.

We also have a very good example of a 13 year old girl raised according to the virtues of the nanny-state in Florida. She is a ward of the state and will be having her first abortion soon if she hasn't already.

We are asked to believe that reckless sexual promiscuity is the result of an unhealthy fear and taboo of sex-related topics in certain segments of our culture. The solution, we're told, is passing out condoms and explicit demonstrations (i.e. bananas, etc) at schools, as opposed to misleading abstinence programs.

By the same logic, it would seem the problem of reckless gun-violence is the result of an unhealthy fear and taboo of gun-related topics in certain segments of our culture. The solution, we can assume, would be passing out guns and explicit demonstrations (i.e. loading, safety, etc.) at schools, as opposed to misleading zero-tolerance programs.

We could throw examples of indignation back and forth all day.
I would suggest that we don't live in utopia. I would also suggest that it has never existed.
The world had its chance at perfection many years ago before the invention of media, especially that vile liberal left media. If you check your history I'm sure you'll find how much better it was.
How would you in your wisdom deal with the 13 year old girl?

How would I deal with the 13 year old girl? Well, that's a little late for dealing with girls. So, in answer to your question, I would pay for all the abortions she'll be needing over the next five years until I turned out into the streets to be adopted by the criminal justice and penal system. Yes, she seems to be on her way to being a perpetual ward of the state of Florida.

Perhaps a more progressive program would have a better chance at redirecting the life of the then nine year old girl turned over to the care of the state. If you're really interested in my feelings on child-rearing, feel free to read my April 28 entry over at Vagabondia; Spare the Rod, Arrest the Child

Re: the child that had to be handcuffed. If the teachers would not keep on insisting that their students have to be fed Ritiln or Prozac all the time, these children would behave. That the root cause of all the violence in the schools nowadays. They should of asked the teacher if she prescribed any mind altering drugs. The teacher should have applied the flat board of education. They will find that it works wonders.

Sex ed in schools should not be there period. That is the job of the parents, not the schools. As for teaching about homosexuality, no way in hell should that be taught. If it is taught at all, it should be taught that it is against God’s Law. .

About that female child displaying the awful behavior, later handcuffed...

It used to be that the school principal would deal out punishment to behavior like that THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED IN SCHOOL and if it happened a second time, the child in question would likely be expelled. At least sent home with a stern note to the parent to attend a meeting with the Principal, teacher involved and the child later, and THEN there'd be a determination made about whether or not the child could remain involved in general population educational groups (or perhaps be in need of being separated and sent to Special Ed with further review later on the way as to their status and possible improvements).

HOWEVER, TODAY the only alternative with a child who is behaving quite so terribly as that child did is to CALL THE COPS. The schools can't take effective disciplinary measures at the moment that the bad behavior is displayed (thus, making it far less likely that the child even understands what they've done correctly or badly and is nearly certainly to do the same behavior again and probably to increase the volume/violence used -- you have to apply discipline at the moment or near enough to the moment of bad behavior, within the context of bad behavior, for there to be a reasonable chance for the child/offendor to effect change -- they have to be presented with the connection between their actions as bad and why and what the proper alternatives are and why or else there's little liklihood that any improvement will happen afterward, but an expectation, instead, that the bad behavior will escalate.

Anyway, the schools have little choice other than to CALL THE COPS when something like that happens -- and/or call the parents but in the case of this child, there's a history of her behavior in question so it seems that the school opted to call the cops, etc.

The cops did what they needed to do to: secure the child's safety (prevent her from harming herself and/or harming anyone else) and to maintain their own safety (they were called, they showed up, they are cops, they took law enforcement measures that they're trained to apply to unruly/unreasonable/violent-threatening behavior and that was to restrain the person responsible for the bad behavior and take them into custody).

So, I think what the cops did in those circumstances was correct. I realize the person taken into custody was a child, but given the situation (she's posing a violent upset, cops are called, cops did what they are trained to do...), it seems reasonable to restrain the child and handcuffs were the easiest means to do that.

However, I read/heard elsewhere that it's "alleged" that the cops left the child sitting in cuffs in a patrol car for several hours. Not a good thing, if only for the child's welfare, wellbeing. I don't know if that actually took place, just that I heard that it had, in which case, that's not good and can and probably did hasten further trauma to the child.

I've heard the mother on television going on about that the child is well trained and such and that she only has a problem with the specific school teacher who she acted out with in this latest episode. Hogwash, to a great extent, because the mother is thereby admitting that she's aware that the child has a severe problem with anyone and has remained untreated for that problem.

So, I can't see how the mother can possibly expect any compensation for her lack of effective parenting. Sadly, the mother seems unable to even comprehend that the child is troubled and in need of more help and more effective parenting. Which also explains the child's problems to a great degree.

The second grader thing is outrageous. Truly, outrageous. We now have a second/third generation of New Age children-grown-to-be-teachers and they're proving over and over again that they're sadly unskilled with providing example to children in classrooms nationwide. We really, really need an overhaul in our nation's educational system and it should start with teachers: no lifetime jobs, no union heavy handed demands without proven delivery of services, an end to the presumption that educators and particulary school boards place upon the public, that they are not answerable to parents and taxpayers.

And parents everywhere need to wake up to the respnsibilities of becoming and remaining involved in the daily activities of their children, who and what they are exposed to in schools, and to intervene when there's an objectionable issue/person making access to their children.

-s-, I'm in complete agreement with your first post, though I question whether the child was left in the patrol car for hours. If the mother was called--as I recall-- at about 2:15 PM, and said she would be there by about 3:15 PM, then there would be little reason to leave the child in the patrol car unless the police were waiting for advice from the local D.A.'s office about possible charges.

As for your second post, I agree with your points about the need for an overhaul of our educational system and the need for greater parental involvement in their childrens' education. But before I start blasting the school teachers in this case, I want to know:

1) Why didn't the mother inform the school that her son had special needs when she initially registered him? Or did she, and is the school superintendant lying?
2) Why had the child not been to school in three weeks--was the mother procrastinating or was the school (board) dragging it's heels?
3) Were the teachers and principal trained to handle potentially violent children or was the child just dumped into a mainstream classroom?
4) Were they even warned that the child could be violent?

What made the Florida case so easy to call--for some people, me included--was the fact that we have video tape to show just how out of control that child was. We also have a little more backstory to work with; among other things, the audio from that tape showed that this was not the first time that that cop had had to deal with that child. Until we get more on this one, I'd suggest that we wait before demanding someone's head on a platter.